In many types of furniture, such as shelves, chairs, tables, bookstands, etc., it is desirable to have a support surface which can be expanded to provide additional support space or retracted when not in use. For example, numerous chair designs have been proposed in the past which provide for an expandable seating area. Examples of such chairs can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,743,351; 2,242,617 and 1,530,420. Such chairs are beneficial because they can be expanded to provide additional seating space or retracted to minimize required storage space. However, past designs for expandable chairs, such as those of the above-identified patents, have been cumbersome to use. A such, these designs are unsuitable for many applications and they are particularly unsuitable for use by small children. These designs are also complex and costly to manufacture. As a result, these designs are particularly unsuitable for outdoor furniture, i.e., lawn chairs, where consumers place an emphasis on low cost, durable products. Moreover, know designs cannot readily be adapted for use in connection with other types of furniture, such as tables, desks or shelves.